


split open to reveal the revelation of the fatal softness in the earth

by bioluminesce



Series: Control Short Fics [2]
Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Body Horror, Gen, a drabble with aspirations to grandeur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23773909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioluminesce/pseuds/bioluminesce
Summary: Dylan Faden wakes up now and then, and Emily Pope is there to decide what to do with him.
Series: Control Short Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978102
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	split open to reveal the revelation of the fatal softness in the earth

**Author's Note:**

> [title](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1509063-where-lies-the-strangling-fruit-that-came-from-the-hand)

Dylan Faden wakes up now and then.

Emily Pope varies her work between the board room and the office-turned-hospital. Both rooms feel unsuited for the purpose, too high-ceilinged and echoing, but Emily has been working in the House long enough to know it does not like to be forgotten. Sometimes when she goes into Dylan’s makeshift room Jesse is there, looking at her brother. Emily has never been inside when they talk. 

Emily isn’t good at niceties, but she tries. She welcomes him back. Someone has placed a spiky little plant by his bedside, and she doesn’t remove it. Every time, her politeness is ignored. 

She suspects this is much more because of her job title than because of her social graces.

The first time he speaks to her, she hadn’t even intended to be heard. She simply talked to herself sometimes, turning ideas around like gum in her mouth. The rangers posted at the door might notice, but they expected scientists to be quirky and Emily was happy to be allowed to lean into the type. 

“Why weren’t you mutilated?” 

“Because I told them not to.” Dylan answers in a clipped, matter-of-fact tone. 

Tape ticks in the corner, recording his return to the world. 

“It can’t be.” Emily moves to his bedside. “No one else could resist the Hiss possession. Why you?”

“Because I asked for it.” Boils rise on his forearms. Before Emily can react, they lid open onto skinned-red eyes. burst, and melt into red smoke that rises toward the ceiling. The light in the room doesn’t change: it’s localized corruption, contained in his body. 

It’s _fascinating._ For all the slick egg-yolk texture of the boils, there’s something _clean_ about how they make such perfect circles.

Emily Pope stops just short of telling Dylan Faden to _do that again._ It’s scientific curiosity tinged with personal interest. Funny how so many things the FBC discovers are horrible, she thinks. Couldn’t we have more beneficial Objects? Not just for the director, but for us all? Was everything they dig up hidden for a reason, the more pleasant miracles already present in hospitals and living rooms? 

“I have to document this,” she says instead. Looks around for a ranger to hold the clipboard while she grabs for a thermometer and a camera. For a second she’s struck with guilt about how much Dylan looks like a bug pinned on a card, wearing institutional sweats on a field hospital bed. She should let him up. Should allow him some dignity.

Then he starts to chant. He can’t rise into the Hiss curve with the straps around his body, but all the other signs of possession are there.

“Dylan?”

The rangers approach when Emily raises her voice.

“Dylan!”

He’s fully in the chant now. Jesse told Emily he would become unresponsive like this. Emily hugs the clipboard to her chest. It’s her job to find out _why_ this is happening; it’s one of the many parts of her job she can do that Jesse can’t. 

Did this happen because he wanted it to, or did the Hiss move with their own tides, regardless? Did Dylan know the difference? Did he think he did and was wrong? 

If she could see the eyes open on her own arms and hands with no consequence, would she let them? 

She shakes her head and waved the rangers back. That question didn’t matter. The Hiss wasn’t a tool like a good blackrock knife. There _had_ been consequences. Dylan was wrong and selfish…But Trench had thought he was right, too, all the while he was handing the Bureau over to the very kind of forces it had been created to restrict.

Emily resists the temptation to touch Dylan’s arm where the smoke had risen. No more keeping people like objects. No more making decisions alone. This was a ticking clock in the walls of the house, a countdown to the next invasion, but it was also the work of a wounded person. 

Next time he woke up, she would ask him what he wanted. 

And she would check with Jesse before she promised she could grant it. 


End file.
